18. Wren
Wren
Six Months Later
***
Knox’s bird looks like he took a belt sander to it, then tried to glue it back together without ever actually seeing a bird in real life. Maybe he just got a description over text and went for it.
“It’s a robin,” Knox says, holding it out on his palm like it’s made of glass instead of a chunk of basswood that clearly lost a fight with a pocketknife.
I take it and turn it over. One wing is huge, the other is barely there, and the beak is pointing off at some weird angle like it’s trying to escape. The tail is just a flat chunk, like Knox got bored halfway and said, screw it, good enough.
“Knox.”
“Yeah.”
“This is the worst thing I’ve ever held.”
Benji snorts so hard beer shoots out his nose. Knox just stands there, arms crossed, not even blinking. He shrugs, mouth twitching like he’s trying not to laugh. “I spent four hours on that.”
“You should’ve spent five, man.”
“Oh, fuck you.” But he’s grinning, wide and real.
I close my hand around it, careful not to break off any sad little pieces. “Soren’s going to lose his mind.”
“Good crying or bad crying?”
“With Soren? Both. At the same time.”
Knox claps me on the shoulder so hard my teeth rattle, then Benji grabs him and drags him off toward the grill. Declan’s over there flipping burgers like it’s his job.
The patio at Byrne’s & Thompson’s actually looks different tonight.
Someone strung lights through the trees, and there are mismatched lawn chairs everywhere, probably dragged out of storage last minute.
The folding table is about to collapse under all of Milo’s side dishes and way too many desserts.
Benji went nuts with the signs—he hand-painted them and duct-taped them all over the place.
There’s one on the back door that says BONDED PARKING ONLY, and another by the cooler that just says FERAL ZONE with an arrow pointing at Jude, who’s already standing on a bench like he owns the place.
There’s a new sign above the back door, the one Shay had made.
The string lights hit it just right. Byrne’s & Thompson, all neat letters on some old wood, and the ampersand is way too big.
Declan told me Shay measured where to hang it three times before he let Diego put in the screws.
Then he measured it again, just to be sure.
It’s a lot. The noise, the people, the smell of charcoal and cut grass all mashed together.
A year ago, I would’ve heard someone shout and bolted straight back to my workshop to sand the same piece of wood for hours.
Six months ago, I’d have just stood on the sidewalk, watching the lights from across the quad and pretending I didn’t care about coming in.
Soren shifts against me, settling his weight into my arm like he’s trying to anchor himself. His fingers mess with the little pouch at his hip, turning Keats over and over like it’s a worry stone. He always carries one bird, always Keats. The last one I made for him.
He smells like charcoal and summer, and I let it pull me back down to earth.
“You’re doing the thing,” he says, tipping his face up at me.
His eyes are warm and a little glassy from the beer Declan gave him.
The bite mark on his neck is healed now, silver-pink above his collar.
Mine. My pulse jumps every time I see it.
Every damn time. I want to lean over and put my mouth on it right here, in front of everyone, just to see him melt into me.
I have to clench my jaw to keep from doing it.
“What thing?”
“The quiet-guy thing. Where you stand really still and catalog structural problems instead of talking to people.”
“The patio railing’s loose on the south side.”
“Wren.”
“I could fix it in ten minutes, tops.”
He pinches my hip through my shirt. “You are not fixing a railing at a barbecue thrown in our honor.”
“It’s not for us. It’s a pack thing.”
“Jude literally has cue cards for a toast about us.”
I look over. Jude’s actually holding a stack of index cards, shuffling through them while Rhys stands below the bench with a hand on Jude’s calf, ready to catch him if he falls. Honestly, with Jude, that’s probably a good idea.
“I’m gonna need another beer,” I mutter.
Soren laughs against my shoulder, and I feel it all the way through my chest.
Aaron shows up with two beers, because my brother always knows when I need a drink and when to be a pain in my ass about it.
“You look like you’re about to pass out,” he says, way too cheerful, and hands me a bottle.
Then he turns to Soren. “Is he being weird? He’s being weird, right? He always gets weird at parties.”
“He’s being perfect,” Soren says.
“Gross,” Aaron says, making a face. “You two are disgusting. I love it. Hey Wren, did you ever tell Soren about the time you got your head stuck in a fence?”
“I was seven,” I mutter, but Aaron’s already gone, dragging Ava over by the elbow. Ava’s been his partner in crime since the Festival, and she’s already cracking up.
“A fence?” Soren says, his voice full of delight.
“I’m not telling this story.”
“You don’t have to,” Aaron calls over his shoulder. “I’ve got visual aids on my phone.”
Ava slides in next to Soren like she’s always belonged there and immediately starts telling a story about Callum getting stuck in a tire swing when he was nine.
Callum’s six feet away, seasoning corn like it’s a bomb about to go off, and doesn’t even look up.
“It was a regulation tire swing. The hole was smaller than advertised.”
“The hole was normal-sized,” Ava shoots back. “You were just built like a fridge by fourth grade.”
Milo shows up next to Callum with a plate of something that smells like brown butter, pressing his hip against Callum’s arm like it’s just what they do. Callum takes the plate, still focused on his corn, and drops a kiss on top of Milo’s head without missing a beat.
I watch them. All of them. Not from the outside this time. Not through a window, not across the quad, not hiding behind my workbench.
I’m right in the middle of it.
Shay comes through the back door with a clipboard and a bar towel over his shoulder, directing Diego to move a cooler and Tessa to swap the keg.
Declan watches him from the grill with that look.
The one where his whole face goes soft and dumb and he forgets he’s holding a spatula.
I know it because I’ve been wearing it for weeks.
Shay catches Declan looking. “Stop staring and flip the burgers.”
“They’re flipped.”
“Then flip them again. I’m not serving charcoal to our pack.”
Our pack. Shay says it like it’s no big deal, like it’s always been true. Maybe for him, it has.
Jude taps his beer bottle against his index cards and clears his throat with the theatrical gravity of a man who’s been waiting for this moment his entire life. “Attention! Attention, please. Yes, that means you, Knox. Put your tongue back in your own mouth for thirty seconds.”
Knox pulls his tongue from Benji’s neck with zero shame. Benji flips Jude off without looking.
“Thank you. Beautiful. Okay.” Jude straightens on the bench, one hand on Rhys’s shoulder for balance, the other holding his beer up. The string lights catch the copper in his hair and the wild grin on his face.
“A year ago,” he says, “I downloaded a trashy hookup app because I wanted to get laid. That’s it. That was the whole plan. Get knotted, have a good time, maybe find someone whose sheets didn’t smell like a middle school locker room.” He pauses. “Low bar. I know.”
A few people laugh. Rhys shakes his head, smiling at the ground.
“And then I walked into a discussion section”—Jude snaps his fingers—“bam. My brain checked out. Completely vacated the building. And I thought, okay, this is a problem. This is a me problem. But it wasn’t.
Because it turns out fate has a sense of humor, and its preferred delivery method is a hookup app with a knot emoji for a logo. ”
He looks around the patio. At Milo leaning into Callum. At Benji sprawled across Knox’s lap. At Shay with his clipboard, Declan’s hand finding the small of his back as he passes. At me, with Soren tucked under my arm.
“We all came here for the same reason. We wanted something casual and easy and safe. And instead we got”—he gestures at the whole chaotic, loud, beautiful mess of us—“this. Fated mates. Claiming bites. And, in Soren’s case, a flock of hand-carved birds, plus whatever the hell Knox just contributed. ”
“It’s a robin!” Knox yells.
“It’s an act of God,” Jude says. “But it’s got spirit.”
Soren hides his face against my shoulder. I pull him in closer. My hand lands on his hip, thumb pressing into the bare skin where his shirt’s ridden up. It’s a small thing, but it’s mine, and it’s exactly what I need.
“So.” Jude raises his bottle higher. His voice wobbles a little at the edge, and Rhys’s hand tightens on his calf. “To getting knotted.” He grins, wolfish and bright. “And keeping your alpha.”
He looks right at Soren when he says it.
Everyone raises their drinks. The chorus is ragged and overlapping and perfect: “To getting knotted and keeping your alpha!”
Soren finds my hand and squeezes. His eyes are wet, and he doesn’t even try to hide it.
I press my mouth to his temple. He’s warm from the summer air, warm from the toast, warm because he’s mine.
Benji drops into the chair across from us, beer dangling from his fingers, and his gaze snags on the bite mark above Soren’s collar. His expression doesn’t change. “So that healed up nice. Very photogenic. Did you plan the V-neck or just get carried away?”
Before I can answer, Jude is already there, shoving between chairs, eyes locked on Soren’s neck.
His whole face crumples. “Oh my god.“ His voice cracks and he grabs Rhys’s arm without looking. “Rhys. Rhys, look. Look at them. It’s so cute. I can’t—I literally cannot—“ He presses both hands over his mouth and makes a sound like a teakettle.